It's amazing: Of all the financial applications that could be built, ERP vendors focus on core financials like general ledger. Here's a firm that serves an enviable clientele -- but it's not a big name brand in financial software (yet).

As we look at how software will be evolving, traditional PC applications and mobile apps have some substantial differences, key among them the depth and flexibility traditional applications offer that are often an anathema to mobile users.

The internet of things could be very helpful to organizations or bury them under the weight of operational data from a herd of devices, their software, and their applications. Glassbeam believes its SCALAR is the tool that will make sense of it all.

Software as a Service offerings -- such as SalesForce.com, Office356, Microsoft Dynamics and AthenaHealth -- hold out the promise of replacing enterprise applications and serving as platforms for future development. While the promise can be fulfilled, organizations have to take some responsibility too.